That's Your Mum
by H. L. Hunter
Summary: Mother's Day is fast approaching The Edge and whilst most of the Riders are heading off home to celebrate, two are staying behind. One doesn't have a mother to celebrate with, and the other is going to help him remember her. (Set during RTTE)


_A/N: I am sorry that Snotlout is a little OOC in this, but the reasoning for it is that this story deals with the relationship between Hiccup and Snotlout as cousins and I like writing Snotlout redemption stories where he and Hiccup bond and become friends more._

* * *

 **That's Your Mum**

* * *

Mother and Child Day, more commonly known as Mother's Day, takes place on fourth Sunday of Spring. It is a special day where the maternal figure in your life, be it your Mother, Grandmother, Aunt or whoever, is celebrated. Presents are opened in the morning before the lunch at the Great Hall, and then the entire afternoon is spent celebrating privately as a family.

This day of the year was always a favourite day among Berkians. The flowers would be blooming on Berk and the good cheer would be ripe. The Dragon Riders had made plans to leave for Berk extra early so they could get home in time to not only see Trader Johann as he made his visit to Berk, but to also get to spend a few extra days with their mothers.

All except two.

* * *

"Alright: Spill!" Astrid demanded as she leaned against the door frame of Snotlout's hut. The Rider in question was looking around his hut for... something. Astrid couldn't see what exactly. He stopped when Astrid spoke and turned to face her.

"What do you want me to spill?" He asked, turning back to rummaging through a chest. Astrid huffed and crossed her arms, walking into the room.

"For the past week you've been nice to Hiccup," she explained, "nice! You willingly helped him with patrol, cleaned up after Hookfang when he asked without any hesitation and have practically been at his beck and call for everything! And you've been pretty tense around the rest of us lately. Did you lose another bet with the Twins?"

Snotlout looked up and laughed, crossing the room to the stairs that took him up to his bedroom. "No, I didn't," He said, his voice getting a little louder as he disappeared out of view.

"Then what's going on with you?" Astrid asked him, sounding more and more frustrated by the second. "And what's all this about you and Hiccup not going back to Berk with us?"

"You really wanna know?" Snotlout shouted down the stairs before appearing again, this time with a book under his arm. Snotlout has books?

"Yeah," Astrid said, her voice softening slightly, "yeah I would."

As Snotlout walked over to the small table on the side of the room, everything seemed to change about him. His shoulders slumped slightly, his feet dragged along the ground a little more and he seemed... sad? Upset? He drew in a deep breath and sighed, before turning around and slouching against the table. He looked up, crossed his arms, and spoke.

"When I was a baby, I used to spend a lot of time with my Aunt," Snotlout told her, eyes diverting to look at the floor. "She would take care of me whilst Dad and Ma worked or they helped in the raids."

Astrid took a few steps forward as he spoke. Something didn't seem right. He was speaking quietly, completely unlike _Snotlout._

"I don't remember everything, I was only One, but my Ma used to paint us." Snotlout turned around and picked up the book, opening it and showing Astrid. Inside were paintings on special paper, all of which were of a woman with long auburn hair with a little baby in her arms. Sometimes the baby had dark hair, sometimes auburn like herself. Sometimes the baby was a year old, and sometimes just a few months. Astrid recognised the woman well from the stories her mother would tell her.

That woman was Valka Haddock, and the children in the paintings were Snotlout and Hiccup as babies.

"I'd spend hours looking at these paintings as a kid, asking my parents what happened to Aunt Val... Hiccup doesn't remember her at all, Astrid," Snotlout told her, snapping her attention away from the book. "I thought he knew about her. I always assumed he remembered her, or at least that he had seen paintings of her, but no." The book was placed back down on the table. "No, he has never seen a painting of his own mother. He remembers nothing."

Snotlout walked back over to the chest, pulling out some brown cloth and some string. He took them back to the table and laid them down, proceeding to wrap the book in the cloth. "Do you wanna know what makes things even worse?" Snotlout asked though he was going to tell Astrid anyways, "The day that Aunt Val died? It was the fourth Sunday of Spring."

"No..." Astrid sighed, eyes widening a little. No. No, that was just horrible.

"Horrible, right?" Snotlout laughed bitterly as he kept wrapping. "I remember more about Hiccup's own mother than he does. He has never gotten to celebrate Mother's Day, not once. Each time it passed it would just be another horrible reminder for the family of what he was missing." Tying the knot on the top of the present, Snotlout turned around once more to look at the female Rider.

"When I found out all this, we were back on Berk last. I spoke with my Ma and told her everything, same with Uncle Stoick. I told them that this Mother's Day I wanted to give him Ma's paintings as a present, and I wanted to spend the day with him instead. Ma was understanding; said she would be happy to miss Mother's Day the once." He picked up the present and held it under his arm. "So, Hiccup and I are going to spend the week here on The Edge. We're going to hang out, like I've realised we should have done when we were younger, and I'm going to make sure this Mother's Day is a happy one for him."

Without another word, Snotlout walked towards the door of his hut.

"Why the sudden change of heart?" Astrid asked.

"I was wrong about Hiccup when we were kids." Snotlout admitted, "I've learnt that now. I'm just trying to make up for lost time. Enjoy your trip to Berk."

* * *

The Riders left the next morning at first light. Two days later and it was the fourth Sunday of Spring and Snotlout was woken up by Hookfang nudging his arm.

"Alright, alright! I'm getting up!" He moaned, groggily rising from his bed and pulling on his shoes. He got dressed into something a little bit more appropriate for the day and headed towards the Clubhouse. By the time he got there, Hiccup was already awake.

"Hey!" Hiccup said with a smile way too happy to be normal for bright and early in the morning. He pushed a plate of breakfast towards the chair Snotlout plopped himself into. "I've got something awesome to show you today. It involves explosions, so I think you may like it. And later I was thinking maybe we..."

If you asked Snotlout, he'd never admit to this being the happiest he had seen Hiccup in a while. No, that would be too upsetting to admit. Snotlout knew that for the first fourteen years of his life, he had been a bit of a ass towards Hiccup. And no; it is not swearing if you are talking about donkeys. Snotlout has explained that a lot recently. Though most of the time he would laugh things off and make a joke about everything, even Snotlout knew when it was time to own up to things. This was one of those times. Snotlout had to face the fact that he was horrible to his Cousin and make things right - something he should have never had to remedy in the first place, or at least should have done it four years ago. The best way to do it was not by apologising. Oh no; everyone on Berk knew that when it came to Hiccup, actions spoke louder than words. Three months ago, during Snoggletog, Snotlout had decided that now was the time to make things better. Even if it meant looking at all of Hiccups inventions all day.

"Alright," he said, finishing his last bit of breakfast, "what's this amazing exploding thingy you wanna show me?"

* * *

Protective goggles on? Check! Standing twenty paces away from the fire? Yup! Emergency water in case of disaster? Definitely! Gronkle Iron shields just in case? Sure thing!

"Ready for round two?" Hiccup asked Snotlout.

"You bet!" Snotlout replied with a grin plastered over his face.

"On my mark! One... Two... Three... Now!" As soon as was commanded, Toothless shot a single plasma blast into the fire and it erupted into huge flames that reached taller than the wingspan of a Typhoomerang! Taller the clubhouse! (Which made Snotlout very glad they were in the middle of a field doing this) But the flames? Oh they were magnificent. Sparks of red, yellow, blue and purple shot out from the sides as the cloud of flames rose higher and higher and higher! The deafening boom that came with the combustion, it was enough to send the two Riders sliding slightly backwards. Oh if only the Twins were there to see it. It was-

"Awesome!" Snotlout exclaimed as he watched the blinding light show. "You have got to show me how to make that happen. Please?" Yeah, okay, now he was saying please. Give Snotlout a break! He's trying his best.

"It's just a little Monstrous Nightmare gel in the same container as Hideous Zippleback gas ignited with a Night Fury's plasma blast." Hiccup explained. "I was thinking we could use it on Viggo's ships? We could throw the containers onto the ships and have Toothless ignite them. That way we could-"

"Yeah, yeah, enough with the boring battle planning. Make that thing explode again!" Snotlout said, pointing to the fire pit and smiling.

"That was my last pot of the mixture." Hiccup replied, taking off his goggles and wiping his forehead. "But you can always help me make some more."

* * *

Hanging with Hiccup wasn't as bad as Snotlout had thought it would be. He didn't bore Snotlout all that much with his dragon facts or his plans to stop Viggo. No, Hiccup actually kept asking Snotlout about himself and they took turns telling stories whilst making the "Boom Boxes". Hiccup had tried to explain that the containers were cylindrical and not cube, but Snotlout had just waved him off.

"We could show these to the others when they get back from Berk," Hiccup suggested, and Snotlout agreed, though both said they would have to be hidden from the Twins. Snotlout even had a good idea of his own: why not see if other dragon fires can ignite them. That way it wouldn't just have to be Toothless giving the blasts in case he ran out of shots.

"I wonder how everyone is doing back on Berk." Hiccup said, the mood suddenly dropping. All day Snotlout had tried to not mention what day it was. "Speaking of, why did you decide to stay instead of going back?"

"Eh, you know, I just wanted to spend the day with my cuz!" Snotlout replied though Hiccup saw straight through it. "Okay, so I wanted to stay with you because of what today is. I didn't want you being alone. I know you've never celebrated before." He admitted.

"You didn't have to do that," Hiccup told him, but Snotlout just put down the Boom Box he was working on.

"Yeah, I did. You've never gotten to celebrate Mother's Day before and that's just not right. It didn't feel right me celebrating with my Ma if you didn't get to with yours." Snotlout got up and headed to the door with a simple "back in a sec" being his only explanation. He missed the confused look Hiccup shot Toothless, and the shrug Toothless gave in response before going back to his nap. He also missed the tossing of what was left of Breakfast at the Night Fury which the dragon play-fought Hookfang over. But when he returned, Snotlout was more focused on the present in his hands.

"I got you this," he said, sitting back next to Hiccup and handing him the present. The other Rider accepted the gift, opening it as he told Snotlout that he didn't need to get him anything since he isn't his Mum. His joking froze when he opened the book, turning into confusion.

"Who's that?" he asked.

"That's your Mum," was Snotlout's simple reply.

For what seemed like an eternity, Hiccup sat there with the book in front of him just looking through paintings of his mother. Some were of Valka and him, some of Valka and Snotlout, one was of Valka and Stoick on their wedding day, one was of Valka just on her own. There were others in there too that Snotlout's mother had just decided to paint of the Haddock Family - she had this tendency to just randomly paint things when there wasn't a raid going on - but the ones in that book were specifically of Valka.

"Where..." Hiccup began, but couldn't seem to continue as he just kept flicking through the pages, each one a different painting of his mother. Snotlout started to point some out to him.

"That one was our first Snoggletog, back when we were babies. Ma said that one was from when Aunt Val and Uncle Stoick were our age. Oh, that's her favourite one! You and your parents when you first came home. There's a great story behind that one. You see: when Dad tried to..."

They sat there in the Clubhouse for hours like that, their project having been abandoned. Toothless and Hookfang disappeared after some time but neither noticed.

When the other Riders came back at the end of the week, none of them mentioned how happier Hiccup looked. None of them mentioned how much Snotlout and Hiccup seemed to work together better. And if any of them saw Hiccup pull a small painting of his mother and himself as a newborn out from his journal every now and again, no one said anything. If anyone saw him staying up late at night around the fire with his nose in that book, no one said anything. If anyone saw how he enthusiastically showed the book to Stoick next time he went to Berk, and how Astrid had found them both fast asleep in the Chief's big chair by the fire with a blanket over them both and that book on their lap, she said nothing.

Okay, so Hiccup didn't have a Mum anymore. It doesn't mean he doesn't have a family.

* * *

 _Please R &R!_


End file.
